


Our Fears Become Memories

by ThinkoftheWindandSun



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Angst, Blood, Feelings of Abandonment, Grief/Mourning, Hallucinations, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Mild Gore, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-23
Updated: 2016-05-23
Packaged: 2018-06-10 04:36:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 2,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6940078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThinkoftheWindandSun/pseuds/ThinkoftheWindandSun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of short one-shots where each of the Reds and Blues is the only survivor of the crash onto Chorus.<br/>(Takes place in an AU where Donut and Doc were on the ship at the time of the crash.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Michael J. Caboose

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on my tumblr: thinkofthewindandsun.
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not, nor have I ever, owned the Red vs Blue show or its characters or original plot line. Nor do I have any ownership or involvement in the Halo video game from which it was devised. There is no monetary compensation for this work, or any other works I have posted.

Caboose has lost many things since he became a soldier.

He has lost Church and Sheila, Tex and Sister too. Lost little bits of his mind until memories are hazy and the world is a mess of colours and nonsense made reality. Then he gets Church back just to lose him again. Caboose knows what loss is.

He just doesn’t know how to deal with it.

So when he wakes up after the crash onto a strange world and discovers the dead bodies of his friends scattered across the wreckage he doesn’t know what to do. Tucker lays broken beneath layers of steel, Wash has a steel pipe sticking out from his throat, Grif’s bunk has crumpled around him and crushed him, Simmons neck twisted at an impossible angle, Donut and Doc’s room torn completely from the ship, Sarge a bloodied mess of armour. He wakes up with a headache, a sore arm, and a taste of blood in his mouth.

At some point he finds himself sitting in a Blue Base in the canyon they crashed in, several familiar helmets clustered on the ground in front of him. There are tears on his face and a pain in his heart and he doesn’t know how to breathe anymore.

When the base is attacked there is no hesitation before he is letting out a bellow of rage that blinds him to everything around him. Sends him rushing straight into a hail of bullets without a care. A one man machine of death and destruction. Has no awareness of anything but utter rage and grief until he is laying in the dirt choking on his own blood, darkness replacing the red haze across his eyes.

As he fades he hopes that he will see his friends again soon.


	2. Dick Simmons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Simmons thinks Grif is sleeping. He is wrong.

The first thing Simmons does when he wakes up after the crash is stumble into Grif’s room shouting for him to wake up. The ship is crashed and he needs to get up before Sarge finds him slacking. Grif needs to stop being lazy and just get up. Really, the lack of snoring should have been the first clue – the second being the way the whole wall that connected to the room being twisted, doorway shaped like a funhouse mirror. He should have noticed.

When the crumpled metal wall where the bunk once was registers everything in him freezes. There is blood dripping from the seems where it clamped shut around the bunk. Evidence of his being present at the time it happened.

Simmons stumbles back and tears off his helmet to vomit on the floor. There is a dull clank as his helmet hits the floor, muffled by the sound of his stomach emptying. His legs give out and he sinks to the floor in a puddle of his own vomit. Tears stream from his natural eye and he chokes out a sound not unlike a howl. 

It is hours before he manages to gather himself enough to crawl over to the wall, reaching out a shaking hand to touch the blood. He stops short, sobs sharply, and tears himself away. Sobbing and coughing and choking back more bile he crawls out from the room and curls up in the hallway. He has no strength to move anymore, and he simply curls into himself and sobs Grif’s name over and over again.

Within a week he joins the victims of the crash.


	3. Dexter Grif

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grif knows, when he wakes, that Simmons is not sleeping.

Grif knows the moment he wakes up that Simmons is not sleeping.

There is nothing to tell him this, just a pit in his gut and the knowledge that while he should be asleep he is not. So he drags himself out of his bunk and makes the trip from his room down the hall to the other man’s room. With every step the pit in his stomach grows. Something in the back of his mind screams for him to turn around to run and hide. He ignores it and moves forwards.

Silence greets him.

Swallowing heavily, the soldier makes his way deeper into the room. Towards the still form sprawled across the floor. Pale skin even paler, robotic parts still and dull. Neck twisted at an impossible angle. Natural eye staring out at the world, glazed and blank. There is no bruising, no blood, no obvious signs of death. Just a broken body that lays in the centre of the floor like some haunting painting.

He closes his eyes and cries.

At some point he finds himself moving through the wreckage. His mind is fuzzy and his thoughts distant. Registers death and destruction and forgets it just as quickly. The back of his mind replays memories of days in the unending sun talking with a man in maroon armour. He passes a bloodied mess of armour, body parts and metal spread across the hall. A hint of recognition in brilliant red armour, lost to the haze of grief already so strong in his mind.

Eventually he leaves the crash and stands in a canyon that is familiar in its design. Walks to the designated Red Base without any real thought. Digs out enough provisions to keep himself alive, and takes his signature weapon to scout the perimeter. He wants to sleep. Wants to gorge on the supplies he gathered and then curl up in his bunk and cry and mourn. But his mind is playing loops of Red Team – of Simmons and Sarge and a little bit of Donut and Lopez. His mind is playing loops and he can’t stomach the thought of food and he can’t stand still.

He paces the perimeter of the base, holds his weapon at the ready, and scans the area for enemies that don’t exist. Standing on the roof of the base he imagines he hears Simmons’ voice speaking to him. Asking him why they’re there. Sarge shouting at Lopez in the background while Donut chatters excitedly. Broken laughter escapes his lips like poison, makes him double over from the force.

He doesn’t know anything anymore.


	4. Agent Washington

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wash leaves the wreckage of his second life and wonders if he is cursed.

Once, when Wash was in prison, he wondered if he was cursed.

He recalls a time when his life was not made of explosions and pain. When death did not fill his soul and hang about his shoulders like a tattered cloak. A time his mind was whole and his world was not fragments of memories and reality. It is a vague recollection, overshadowed by alien thoughts and words of another life not his own, but it is there beneath it all.

He imagines for the first time when he joins the Blues that he can be happy again. That maybe what happened with Freelancer was not a sign. His being left behind was not on purpose. That the Blues would never do that to him.

Then the ship crashes, and he is alone.

He finds Tucker and Caboose.

The ceiling collapsed on them. Tucker beneath Caboose’s curled body – like the larger man was trying to shield the other. It didn’t work. They lay together in that shape, heavy steel girders crushing the life from their bodies. Tucker is still letting out desperate rasping breaths when he arrives. Caboose is still and silent. Wash lets out an inhuman cry and rushes forwards.

Falls to his knees and clutches at Tucker’s hand where he can reach it. He’s not strong enough to lift the metal crushing the life from his subordinate. Grey eyes are wide with horror and denial. Tucker gasps and grips back weakly. Wash kneels at his side and apologizes. Whispers secrets as his friend lets out his last breath with a smile. And he lets out a wail that is heart wrenching to its core.

When he leaves the crash site it is with a rifle in his hands, an assault rifle on his back, and a non-functional sword on his thigh. He stays long enough to bury the bodies of the Blood Gulch Soldiers he can find. Graves in front of their bases. Salvaged identification tags hang about his neck like a noose. He fights not to think about the ones that are missing, bodies unable to be salvaged. He leaves the graves behind with a thought to their souls and a promise that he will not let the curse take another.

He is cursed and he is lost.


	5. Lavernius Tucker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tucker dreams of a future that will never be.

Tucker has always dreamed of the future.

A future where he is not living in a canyon in the middle of nowhere. Or fighting for his life. A future where he is home again with his son by his side. The friends he has made in the Reds and Blues a constant annoyance. Dreams where blood, bullets, and strange energy weapons play no part. He dreams, and hopes, and wishes for that future he wants so desperately.

Dreams end after the crash.

Finding a man he is learning to respect and consider a friend impaled on a metal pipe is horrifying. He tries to stop the bleeding, begs the older man to stay with him. Murmurs meaningless reassurances that the other won’t die. Wash smiles at him with blood covered lips and lets his eyes drift closed. There is forgiveness and relief in that freckled face when he fades. 

Tucker screams.

Perhaps equally painful is finding Caboose. It takes a few minutes for him to realize that the man’s armour has suffocated him. He has to sit down. Removes the helmet and runs his hand gently through his friend’s – and he never got to say it, damn it – dark hair. Feels grief well up like high tide, drowning everything in its path.

Somehow he finds himself wandering with a pack of rations in one hand and a sword in the other. A stripe of yellow painted down the left side of his torso, pauldrons painted cobalt blue. Words of prophecy echo in his ears, in his stride, in every breath he takes in and gives out.

The Great Destroyer has arrived.


	6. Donut

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Donut Screams

Donut screams.

He screams and his friends lay around him like children’s dolls, broken and left to rot. The wreckage of their ship is nothing compared to the horror of seeing men he has come to consider family dead. Sarge’s body is a mass of blood and steel, bits of bone and guts smeared on the walls. Simmons still and oddly peaceful in his nearly untouched room. Grif crushed in the one place he considered safe. His and Doc’s room torn directly off of the side of the ship, missing, presumed dead.

He screams and sobs and dies inside.

Though he will never know how, he gathers himself enough to make his way to the local Red Base. It is difficult. He spends several minutes staring at the walls, dead eyed and breathing through tears. Takes in the dull grey and the cold stone and he feels something settle inside of himself. 

When he closes his eyes he is in a place so similar it hurts. With sunlight pouring in through the ceiling, grey walls decorated with lace and lovely things. The sound of the warthog’s radio drifting indoors and cursing from the back rooms. Smells of gun oil and alcohol and cookies so strong he can taste them.

When he closes his eyes he is home.


	7. Doc

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Doc prides himself on being a pacifist.

Doc prides himself on being a pacifist.

Being able to deal with violent situations without resorting to violence himself. He took in an AI of violence and death and survived without causing casualty to his friends. And while those friends are not above abandoning him, they are the closest thing he has had to a family in a long time. So he makes it his mission to stick close by them, even when he thinks that maybe they deserve a proper medical professional.

It is so like them to go where he cannot follow.

He thinks this almost fondly, tears filling his eyes and grief in his heart, as he kneels beside each of their corpses. That’s what they are, he tells himself firmly. Lifeless bodies. Dead. A choked whine escapes his lips each time he stumbles across another friend. Feels something like gratitude when he realizes that Donut’s body has been torn from the ship with their room and not imploded like Sarge or crushed like Grif. Fights the urge to laugh and vomit at the same time.

Does it anyway. Empties the contents of his stomach on the floor outside of Caboose’s room. Sobs and stumbles through the halls. Gives into the grief and the pain and the upset. Doc has always been a pacifist, but for the first time since O’malley he has to fight the urge to do violence against the world.

The feeling dims as he stumbles from the ship and stares up at the unfamiliar sky. As he takes in a new world filled with people he can try to love like the Reds and the Blues. Some part of him, however small, will always hold them close. For all that they abandoned him, left him to die, kidnapped him, insulted him, they always returned. Above all else he aches for Donut, who was as close to a loved one as he has ever gotten – and he thinks he will ever get.

Though dimmed, the need for violence never leaves his heart again.


	8. Sarge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sarge wonders if he is capable of mourning his dead.

Sarge is old.

Sarge is old and tired and a little bit broken.

He’s taken beatings that would crush a lesser man and he’s kept his team alive through every insanity that has come their way. A tank crushes you? Red Team has your back. Being chased by a madman intent on killing you all? Red Team can kill him. Need a secret plan able to be deployed with a single word at a moment’s notice? Red Team. And, most importantly, flag stolen by those rotten Blues? Red Team will get it back.

Years have passed and somehow Blue Team’s drama has touched them but not stained them. They’ve been beaten, bruised, and broken. Lost and separated. Nearly murdered. Yet through it all they’ve survived intact because they are Red Team and Sarge will be damned if his team is made of pansies. 

It fits that just when he thinks the drama will be over everything finally falls to pieces. Sarge has always been a man of ridiculous plans and paranoid idiocy, but even he could not predict the crash. He thinks it might have been his fault, and the guilt makes him frown as he stares down at the only body that remains of his team. As much as he has shouted for Grif’s demise finding the evidence after the fact is somehow painful. Donut is simply gone. Simmons, stupid loyal Simmons, is all that is left – and even he is broken beyond repair. 

Sarge wonders if he is even capable of mourning them.

He should feel angry or sad or even be in denial. Instead he feels disappointment and a vague sensation of guilt. More than that, he feels impossibly old. Like the last vestiges of his youth have slipped away with his team. His bones ache and his hair is grey and he feels like gravity is pulling his soul down into his boots. The shotgun in his hands feels like a great weight. Like a promise of duty unfulfilled. He sighs and closes Simmons’ eye and takes his tags from his neck.

After a long moment simply staring at the name on the metal he sighs a second time and gets to his feet. Disappointment and guilt. He shakes his head and shoulders his shotgun. Old. The clank of his boots echoes through the ship. His path leads him out of the wreckage and to a sight that makes him chuckle. A canyon stretches out before him, not the desert heat of Blood Gulch, yet unmistakably a canyon.

Not home, but something close enough.


End file.
